Rengen: The Rise of the Cultural Consumer - and What It Means to Your Business (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: catalytic people, facilitating medium, master patrons, New York, Second Cities of the Renaissance, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The good news: America is on the brink of a new renaissance.

The bad news: Many companies, the media, and even the general population still see America as an intellectual and cultural wasteland defined by reality television and fast food.

In this groundbreaking book, cultural specialist Patricia Martin challenges that presumption and argues that we are on the precipice of a major cultural renaissance. Who we are and what we care about is shifting-and a new set of imperatives, products, behaviors, and ambitions is emerging.

RenGen looks at the factors giving rise to this huge economic, social, and cultural shift, including:

• A growing desire to express new ideas and concepts aesthetically
• The renewed interest in learning fueled by the Internet
• A longing to find a new order amongst endless complexity
• Rising interest in enlightenment, evangelism, and reinventing oneself
• Increased concern about political, social, and environmental issues

Based on extensive research with cultural experts/resources-including 1,400 marketing executives, major foundations including the Wallace Foundation, cultural institutions such as the New York Philharmonic, and "culture scouts" in major cities-RenGen provides a lens through which you can recognize and leverage the sea change occurring in your city, community, and the marketplace at large.

About the Author

Patricia Martin is president of LitLamp Communications Group and one of the nation's foremost authorities on the rising marketplace created by the convergence of art, entertainment, education, and business. Her clients include Discovery Channel, BankNorth, Unisys, MCI, Sun Microsystems, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the New York Philharmonic. In 1994, she partnered with the Microsoft Corporation to build the blueprint for what is now the Gates Library Foundation. Martin has been featured for innovative work in marketing in the Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Reporter, Harvard Business Review, and BrandWeek magazine. Seth Godin named her a Purple Cow-an expert who helps clients be exceptional. She lives in Chicago.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Platinum Press (June 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1598691341
• ISBN-13: 978-1598691344
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #475,068 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Deeply Flawed, January 29, 2008

By	R. Adler - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Would that it were true, but I'm afraid I'm in nearly total agreement with JimR's negative review from December 29, 2007. The book never makes its primary point that we're on the cusp of another renaissance, primarily because it fails to convincingly establish the clear precursors of such an historical shift.

Like most marketeers, Ms. Martin over-claims, subtitling her second chapter "How a Renaissance Begins," and asserting there are five "immutable" preconditions to renaissance. However, on page 3 in her first chapter ("Preconditions for a Rebirth") the author explicitly acknowledges deep limitations to her approach, saying:
"I wanted to plot the process that leads up to a transformation as profound as a renaissance. *But* the differences between two civilizations separated by eight centuries are so great, that I focused on the catalytic conditions that share certain similarities, *instead*." [Asterisks are mine.]

Ms. Martin never says what methodological differences exist between "plotting the process" and "focusing on the catalytic conditions" that produced a renaissance, but she clearly implies the former was too difficult and the latter simpler. Worse, she never describes how she chose which conditions qualified as catalytic. This level of social analysis may suffice in boardrooms when reliable, comprehensive date is scarce, and organizations must move quickly, but it is insufficient for predicting significant historical trends. In addition, the author claims a pattern based on a sample of one, never citing any renaissance besides that of Western Europe in the 14th century. She compounds this profound mistake by conflating pre-Renaissance and Imperial Rome. I'm afraid this is what happens when an ultra-contemporary demographer/zeitgeister makes historical claims.

Nevertheless, "RegGen" may serve as a modest introduction to the life and times of those Americans whom elected to pursue a humanities degree over the last 40 years, and particularly since the advent of the World Wide Web. Unfortunately, even within this narrower scope the reader may be better served by other books.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars RenGen is required (and fascinating!) reading, July 21, 2007

By	C. B. White - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

RenGen is required reading for anyone who wants or needs to understand the up-and-coming generation. Martin presents an entirely different, and well-founded, depiction of this group. Written in an accessible style, RenGen has meaning for just about everyone. Whether you employ or manage this generation, parent them, sell to them, prospect for their donations and time, desire their votes, or socialize with them, you need to read RenGen. It will change the way you think and increase your understanding of those around you.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hope for us all, July 23, 2007

By	John R. Stark "info curioius" (boston) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

For too long I've felt absolutely hopeless about our country's future. Our government leaders are against anything progressive, suppressing science, the arts, social movements, and the reality of global warming. But if I'm to believe Patricia Martin in her Ren Gen book, and I do, I feel hopeful again about America. Bubbling underneath all of this resistance, she says, is a collective creativity that is about to erupt into a new renaissance, and within my own lifetime. Martin not only identifies the conditions that have come together to produce an age of enlightenment, but through careful research explores them, even meeting with the business leaders, artists, scientists, civic planners, and others, who are helping us to evolve in a positive way. We are the renaissance generation, or in her coinage, rengen. Martin's careful to distinguish between a renaissance and a revolution; this coming renaissance, she says, doesn't overthrow past ideas and inventions but builds upon them. Don't call it multi-tasking, call it fusion: Example after example shows how we are drawing upon each other's particular expertise to face our problems, co-mingling our professional fields. This spells excitement, challenge, and hope. In this era of Paris Hilton and Fear Factor, I had come to believe that our society had given up caring about anything intelligent. But Martin cites studies that show more people are reading literature, and going to concerts, lectures, operas, poetry slams, and museums. We are anything but a cultural wasteland, she claims, and has the statistics to back it up. This is the first book or even article I have read to put its head above the smog of despair and see clean air. We're not dead, according to RenGen, but being reborn. And now that I know a creative renaissance is flowering, I'm putting up some scaffolding and painting my ceiling.